I can still remember visiting a shop in Doncaster (that shall remain nameless) in the late eighties looking for a new US Jazz. The guy in the shop was absolutely desperate to sell me one of the, must have been 10-15, 'roadworn' 1970s Jazz or P basses. I tried each and every one of them and all were, to put it kindly, thrown together by gibbons in a dark room using bear skins and stone knives. It still amazes me how much some of these sad examples (I totally accept that some examples however are sublime and would love the cash for Gary Mac's example which is currently on sale) now fetch but I suspect it's the image rather than the sound/construction that appeals in many of these cases.